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Gumbo File

A chicken and oyster gumbo flavored with sassafras and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,814 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Gumbo File

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare and disjoint the chicken, then roll it in the flour.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the lard and butter in a soup kettle and fry the chicken until nearly done.

  2. Add the chopped onion and fry together.

  3. Pour in the boiling water and boil for three hours.

  4. Season with cayenne pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

Add the oysters and serve

  1. Ten minutes before serving, cook the oysters in their own liquor until they curl.

  2. Add the oysters to the soup along with the pulverized sassafras leaves mixed with a little soup.

  3. Boil once more and serve.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the meat and body of the gumbo as it simmers in the broth.
Oysters
Add briny flavor, and their own liquor enriches the soup as they cook.
Flour
Coats the chicken and helps thicken the soup as it cooks.
Lard and butter
Fat for frying the chicken, adding richness and browning its surface.
Pulverized sassafras leaves
Add the characteristic earthy, herbal aroma and help thicken the gumbo.

The step that matters

Adding the oysters. Oysters cook quickly and turn tough and rubbery if boiled too long. Adding them ten minutes before serving, just until they curl, keeps them tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, oyster, flour, butter, pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, oyster, flour, butter, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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